Various types of document searching systems permit users to locate documents and other informational items in a wide range of information repositories and databases. These informational items can be generally referred to as documents and vice versa. A document can contain a wide variety of content. On one end of the spectrum, a document may just contain static text, however, on the other end of the spectrum, a document may include survey information or an application. Documents may also contain networks or relational links to other documents.
By way of example, the internet, or the world wide web (WWW) may be considered as a very large database of information items, in the form of web pages, distributed over a very wide area network (WAN). Currently available search engines, can maintain a relational index of the entire content of the WWW, or a portion thereof, parsed into searchable words and corresponding locations such as for example the Uniform Resource Locators (URL).
One of skill in the art will appreciate that a database is useful when a desired information item or document can be efficiently found and retrieved from a database responsive to an inquiry. To locate and retrieve a desired information item in an information database, a search inquiry of the database, e.g., based on a keyword or a text string, may be required. The search typically involves finding entries matching the keyword (or string) in an index created from parsing the information items into searchable words and the location in which the word appears in the database or specific information item.
By way of example, a customer support technical call center may equip their customer service representative with a database system where the representative can access informational items (documents) that will assist the representative to better answer a customer's question or troubleshoot a problem that the customer is experiencing. The customer service representative may search the database in real time during a customer service call.
Another drawback of conventional help information retrieval systems is that path to locate/retriever help information items is often fixedly mapped, requiring a user to always following the same help menu path to arrive at a particular help item of interest. The problem with fixedly mapping paths is that even if the path is ultimately proven to be inefficient, the inefficient path nevertheless must always be followed in order to retrieve that particular help item. The efficiency of a particular path to be taken may depend on the context in which the help item is sought. Because the fixed mapping cannot account for the various contexts, it is inefficient, and thus diminishes the usefulness of the help information retrieval system.
A shortcoming of conventional information retrieval systems is that when using these systems, it may take some time to drill down through a database of information items to locate a particular document that will ultimately be useful in assisting a customer, and even after finding the sought after information once, to find the same information again for a later similar customer, unless the customer service representative remembers the location of the information, the representative may have to follow the same navigational trail, again spending the same required time and effort as previously expended. Moreover, a subsequent user looking for the same information would have to duplicate the time and effort, i.e., must re-invent-the-wheel, in order to find the information, and often ends an information retrieval session in frustration without finding the desired information. This duplicated effort is wasteful and inconvenient, and thus diminishes the usefulness of the database.
Thus, what is needed is an efficient system for and method of a convenient and economical retrieval of the one desired informational item in an informational retrieval system that allows leveraging of the time and effort invested during prior information retrieval sessions.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an efficient system and method for a dynamic and context sensitive mapping of help items in a help information retrieval system.